Garden roses are an important part of any rose program —even more so in supermarkets and grocery stores that cater to special events and weddings. As a matter of fact, garden roses bring in significant event business, because they are key anchor products for weddings, bridal showers and other special events.
Garden roses used to be expensive and they also had a very short vase life. They used to be supplied by shrub rose growers whenever they had a flush of flowers and they had to be shipped overnight from the west coast to wherever they were needed.
Jose AzoutThe varieties were not selected for cut flower performance and the shipping was less than efficient, but they were so beautiful and large and fragrant that people bought them anyway. Customers became accustomed to spending a lot of money for roses that needed to be used within 48 hours or they might be wilted for the event. A florist would have to receive them on a Thursday for a Saturday event and then would cross their fingers that the flowers would last that long.
Fast forward 20 years and you find a very different scenario. Today’s cut garden roses are either bred for, or selected specifically for use as cut flowers. That means they have the shelf life and the vase life that is required for cut flowers.
Plus, most of them maintain the beauty of garden roses of the past — they are large, fragrant and usually have special nostalgic shapes, either cabbage or English Garden.
And best of all, modern cut garden roses offer performance in the vase — the performance of a rose that blooms in a vase to twice its size, that smells up a room, and that open up to the shape of roses depicted in old Dutch masterpieces.
Today’s garden roses require three or four days in water before they are ready to use, and their vase life is usually longer than 10 days.
In order to provide information about garden roses and also as a service to the floral industry, Alexandra Farms has its own Cut Garden Rose Wedding Guide available on its web page. The guide can be viewed or downloaded and is a useful reference tool. The download can be in high resolution for printing or low resolution for e-mailing. Check it out at www.alexandrafarms.com/ecofriendly.html.
Jose Azout is president at Alexandra Farms in Bogota, Colombia. He can be contacted at joserazout@alexandrafarms.com.